The Love Of My Life Has Died, Shut Everything Down
by Anamakorga
Summary: In which the Voice of Night Vale's entity is passed to whomever the Voice interacted with before they either died or retired. Carlos was not prepared for being expected to take on the role of community radio host the very next day. But it is a responsibility he has nonetheless. He dedicates the broadcast in its entirety to Cecil Gershwin Palmer, because Cecil is always the news.


_**Love is a completely false concept made up by powerful liars to guilt you into giving them what they want.**_

 **Hey there, Night Vale.**

Hello, listeners. This is Carlos. Carlos the scientist. Carlos the community radio host. I-I regret to inform you that you will not be hearing from Cecil again. I say this because I am the new Voice of Night Vale, a statement that feels so wrong in my mouth that I cannot even begin to comprehend the possibilities of it. If, before, I had ever been offered the chance to become the Voice of Night Vale, I would have said that I was honoured, and then rejected the offer, quickly and _vehemently_. I am not saying I did not want to be Voice of Night Vale - No, that is exactly what I am saying. I did not want to be the Voice of Night Vale. Because being the Voice was _Cecil's_ job, and it brought him so much _joy_. You cannot understand how it felt to see him come home at night after a good day and to tell me what had happened, even when he knew I had been listening. You cannot understand how when he smiled he lit up the room. You cannot understand how much I loved him. It was a lot. I am without him, and it scorches my insides. You cannot understand - or maybe you can. Maybe you are feeling it right now. I am not Cecil, and I know so many of you listened to his show, this show, my show now. I am sorry.

I am so sorry. _So, so sorry_. I will never be Cecil. I _can_ never be Cecil. **_I don't ever want to be Cecil_**. Cecil was so...amazing. Just. Amazing. I remember - I remember looking from the lights above the Arby's over to him.

He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly.

I hate this. I don't want to be here and yet...I have to be here. I know that. I am not going to leave you, because it is my new job to be with you. Through everything, it is my job to be with you. Today's news is that Cecil Palmer is...gone, and that you have a new host for the community radio. I apologize. I knew when it happened. It was blinding and terrifying, the same way I know it always is when one becomes the Voice. I do not know how I know this, but I know. Do you remember yesterday? I remember yesterday. The many-faceted, reflective wolf that went around eating everyone's low-calorie breakfast foods was, apparently, basically a mirror, and, apparently, not just after low-calorie breakfast foods.

Yes, I remember yesterday, and I am glad I do and wish I did not in equal measure. I miss Cecil, even after a single day without him. When I heard the news - it _was_ told to me, though I already knew it - I felt...nothing. I just stood there. I was not greatly astonished, not exactly. I was not anything. Metaphorically, of course. I still existed in time and space. You know how it is. I miss Cecil so much, Night Vale.

Cecil was an intern at this station once. He is one of the three still-liv...one of the three people I can name off of the top of my head who has survived the internship program here at the Night Vale Community Radio Station, so that is just one of many of the great things that he haaa-d done. A great feat indeed. Of course, as the new Voice of Night Vale, I'm probably not supposed to reference the absurdly high mortality rate of the internship program. So, um, going to stop doing that now.

Also, for those of you who may be wondering about any of our current interns and their reactions to this entire idea, I feel it is important to note that when they were informed of this, intern Hayden told interns Maria and Halsey that he was going for a walk, which he did. Unfortunately, in his distraction, he walked...directly into Radon Canyon, and so, to the family and friends of intern Hayden, we regret to inform you that he has been lost to forces beyond our control. Of course, we could _try_ to berate gravity in a firm and disapproving manner, but I really do not think that would help anything, scientifically.

I'm being very negative, aren't I? Cecil was never overly fixated on the positive, but-I do think he tried to keep hopes up. To be a light in the cold, unfeeling darkness, and to be a dark shelter from the searing, oppressive light. He wasn't unnaturally kind, but he was still kind. He was sweet. He never _really_ didn't care. When he did not like something, he _hated_ it. He never just liked something, he _loved_ it. He was passionate, and he voiced that passion just like he voiced everything else - with power and strength evident of a man who was neither mortal nor immortal.

The same way _I_ am now neither mortal nor immortal. When I said that, I meant it metaphorically, but I suppose it is also rather literal as well. As the Voice of Night Vale, I do not age, and cannot die of old age. I can, however, die of many other things. Blood loss. Blood gain. Poison. Falling into Radon Canyon. Being impaled through the abdomen with a bladed weapon, be it double-edged or not. Reflective, many-faceted wolves with a penchant for both low-calorie breakfast foods and human flesh. I am still mostly human, but I'm also more. I am around 310 percent of a being, which is definitely not logical or an actual thing. Actually, now that I think about it, I lied. I am only 100 percent human, after all, and 210 percent Voice. So, scientifically speaking, I am not mostly human, I am mostly Voice of Night Vale. I am not certain whether or not I should be scared at all.

I've decided not to be scared. There is, after all, nothing to be scared of. I am the Voice, and the entity that has its talons around my soul is the Voice. It is odd, being the Voice and, at the same time, _not_ being the Voice in any way, shape, or form. I tried, the first night - just yesterday, just yesterday. It feels like so long ago. I tried, yesterday, to invoke it. It hurt. Night Vale may be a statistically small town, but when it comes to the number of people who can be inside of your head at one time...it becomes a very, _very_ large town. As has been noted, if we were to report every incident that only one death could be attributed to, we would have no time for anything else.

I met Cecil in the first week I came to Night Vale, and his first words to me were, quote, "my god, a truly perfect being". I assume I wasn't actually supposed to hear that, because he immediately blushed and said "my, you're looking _very_ 'spared from the sphere' today." I didn't understand what he meant at the time, but now that I have lived here in Night Vale for a while, I do understand that it was I high complement. I think back on it now and wish I could have returned it, instead of just kind of standing there, awkward and confused. I would have said something like, "no, _you're_ looking very spared from the sphere today" and he would have been temporarily confused, but then I would have explained, and he would have gotten it, because of course he would have, because he is, because he was great like that.

I am asking you all to remember that past performance is not an indicator of future results, because while I have succeeded in my job before, this new job...I do not know if I can do this. It is hard to separate one of you from another consciously, and I have only managed to do it while allowing my mind to wander. That is not to say that each of you is not your own unique person. It just...it hurts. I've started doing impressions of people, and those have gone surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, well. I was never the best at inflection. Now I am though, so I...suppose th-there is really no point in focusing on the past. N-no p-p-point. I, uhum, I need a minute.

I take you now, to the weather.

* * *

 **Weather - Don't Die On Me** **\- Myuu**

* * *

Welcome back, listeners. I have taken the last forty minutes to collect both myself and a record of Cecil Gershwin Palmer as I know of him. There is a lot that I did not know. There is a lot he did not want me to know. Things he had perhaps done and said, long ago. When one lives as long as Cecil did, one naturally accumulates regrets. It doesn't even require that long, really. I've plenty of my own, even only now. There was, many years ago, a time when coming to Night Vale was one of them. I no longer regret this, but instead regret this time when I was so naive and foolish as to think that coming to Night Vale was a bad thing. It wasn't. It never was. It never could be.

I don't think I'll go over it on the air.

He really meant it when he said he loved me, and it makes me so happy to know he loved me, but at the same time it is hard to think about it without feeling grief. I miss Cecil so much. So, so much. I will never wake up to him shaking me awake after sleeping through my many, many alarms. I will never berate him for his insistence on putting ridiculous amounts of cream in his coffee. We'll never watch any horror movies again together while he talks about how he feels bad for all the antagonists. I will never run my fingers through his hair again or feel his hand in mine.

I will never hear his voice on the radio again.

Stay tuned next for friends long forgotten, for damages too far developed already to repair, and dead air.

I think I'll keep his outro.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.


End file.
